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From no focus to re-focus: the six for six challenge.

So I’ve obviously been absent for awhile. In my last post two weeks ago I shared that I was struggling with content and direction for my blog (translate that to life), and it has continued.

Finally, last Thursday night, I was able to just lay back, stare up and think.

I love just thinking. When I don’t get a chance to just space out and think events fly by too quickly, life grabs a hold and I’m just a leaf on the current in the river of life, going where ever it takes me. (Poetic for a Sunday night. I try.)

And that’s what I’ve been for the last three weeks or so, a leaf.

All smiles last Saturday night.

Not that I am lamenting it all. Sometimes it’s ok to let it all go – good intentions be damned! Last weekend I spent two nights in a row acting like I was 22 again (which I am not, let me tell you) and had an amazing time meeting some of my husband’s super fun co-workers. Here’s a picture of me pointing out my smile to show how much I was enjoying the evening! (I may have had a *few* by that time).

I also have been keeping up with Sebastian rides and, although I had already decided against the June show (I just had yet to tell my wonderful readers), on a whim I decided last Thursday that, what the hell, let’s go for it! Who cares if we’ll have less than 20 rides under our belt since November? And I think that’s a good thing, too!

What’s not good is that I’ve hit a “good enough” mentality with my health and fitness goals. I’ve been maintaining really well – and probably gaining some tone and muscle now that I’m riding regularly. But after coming across some “goal” jeans tucked away in my closet this week, and working on the sitting trot on Thursday, I know I’m not done. I may have needed a little break, but now it’s time to re-focus!

Because it’s ok to be that leaf on the river for awhile, but sometimes you have to…humm…be the river? I don’t really know what the hell I’m talking about here. That metaphor kind of worked at first, but it’s not doing it for me anymore.

The point is, I’m setting my sights to “laser beam.” I got the chance to stop and think last Thursday and from that epic pondering session was born the six for six challenge.

I sold Mary Kay quite a few years ago and, although the business never really became anything, I did get something useful out of the experience. In the starter kit, there is inspirational go-get-’em stuff and one thing Mary Kay said she did was choose six things each day that she wanted to complete. It helped break apart challenging projects and it made her feel like she accomplished something each day. I often use this “six things” concept when I’m overwhelmed and it does help! So I decided I should pick six things to refocus on. When I realized that it was only six weeks until the end of June I thought, “Six things for six weeks? Brilliant!”

Because my sister is always up for a health and fitness challenge where money is on the line, I convinced her to turn it into a contest with me.

Here are the rules: we each pick three daily and three weekly goals. For each daily goal we miss, $1 goes into the pot. For each weekly goal we miss, $5 goes into the pot. At the end of six weeks, the one who lost the most percentage of weight wins 50% of the pot and the one who misses the least amount of goals overall wins the other 50%. It is extremely elaborate and does not conform at all to the concept of building a “lifestyle change” because I’m not looking to do these six things forever, BUT who knows what good habits this might form?

So, for those of you who have not yet fallen asleep or moved onto another, more interesting blog, I will share my six goals:

Daily:

1. 100% execution of plan, every day. My current macros are 130g Protein, 100g Carbs, and 30g Fat. I’m splitting these into five meals a day, approx. 25g Protein, 20g Carbs, and 5g fat per meal. I’ll adjust macros depending on what I’m assigned, but I’ll be sticking to five meals a day and working to eat off a healthy foods list.

2. Drink 80 oz. of water each day and take vitamins/supplements once a day. I’m bad at both of these. Hope this helps!

3. I must complete 2 minutes of planks each day – however I can get there, even if it is in 15 second segments. My sister and I both agree that this is really a form of torture and we don’t really know why we agreed to put it in the challenge. Icky planks! 🙂

Weekly:

1. Strength train for 1 hour twice a week. I get to choose the exercises, and will work to get a full body workout each time.

3. Complete 3 sessions of cardio a week, 2 moderate and one interval session. This will help me get ready for the June 28th 5k I signed up for (which I haven’t mentioned yet, but now I have! Yay! I’m doing a 5k!)

So the whole time we’re designing this challenge, we’re laughing about how elaborate it became, but if anything it’ll be an adventure. With the decision to sign up for the June show after all, and this challenge starting up tomorrow, I feel more focused and goal-oriented than I have in quite some time.

7 responses to “From no focus to re-focus: the six for six challenge.”

It’s good to be back, Colin! And I’m so happy to see that I made the cut on your reader! 😀 I was hoping I did! It’ll be fun to see where this challenge leads me – I’m really ready to launch into the next round of fat loss 🙂

Awesome to have a sis to get motivated. Love that you are the River. Rivers are dynamic!!!! Leafs allow themselves to be moved by something other than themselves. Not bad to be leaf for brief moments but too easy to get lost and/or lazy. Have an awesome 6 weeks!!!! Being mom I’m hopping the pot splits 50/50.
🙂

Yay! It’s a comment from my mom! 😀 Day four and going well so far! I hope it goes 50/50, too 🙂 I agree – sometimes one does need to step back and let life take them a bit, just to get a feel of what direction might be natural and which might be speaking to them, but drift too long and you might become lost or in a place you don’t want to be. I don’t like to be goal obsessed, just working on a happy balance. Thanks for reading and responding 🙂